Consistent placement of macro-blocks using floorplanning and standard-cell placement

Abstract

While a number of recent works address large-scale standard-cell placement, they typically assume that all macros are fixed. Floorplanning techniques are very good at handling macros, but do not scale to hundreds of thousands of placeable objects. Therefore we combine floorplanning techniques with placement techniques in a design flow that solves the more general placement problem. Our work shows how to place macros consistently with large numbers of small standard cells. Our techniques can also be used to guide circuit designers who prefer to place macros by hand.